Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I have a series of three questions and I suppose in keeping with the way this has worked it might just be easier for me to run through them than have the minister respond, as seems to be the process. On the ABC’s 7.30 Report on 30 April 2007, prior to the setting up of Labor’s Fair Work Australia, Kevin Rudd said:

I will not be prime minister of this country and appoint some endless tribe of trade union officials to staff or ex trade union officials to staff the key positions in this body.

My first question is: how does the minister justify this comment in light of the fact that six of the last seven appointees to Fair Work Australia are ex-union employees? Is this another one of Labor’s broken promises? I am happy to run through the list of the minister’s appointments for her: John Ryan, a former Senior National Industrial Officer with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association; Michelle Bissett, a Senior Industrial Officer with the Australian Council of Trade Unions; Julius Roe, former National President of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Anne Gooley, a lawyer and former senior official with the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance; Danny Cloghan, former Secretary of the WA Prisons Union and long-time adviser to former Labor MP Jim McGinty. The only person that has been appointed to Fair Work Australia—contrary to the Prime Minister’s promise prior to the last election—that does not have a union background is Peter Hampton, who comes from SafeWork South Australia.

My second question is: Minister, you promised that Fair Work Australia would approve enterprise agreements within seven days. This has now blown out to 17 weeks. How do you justify this or is this just another of Labor’s broken promises? My third question is: what has the minister done to address the plight of teenage workers Matthew Spencer and Letitia Harrison at Terang in country Victoria, who have lost their afterschool jobs because of Labor’s new minimum hour laws? Why did you promise these teenagers that you would ensure that they were spoken to directly by various government departments when we now know that they have not been contacted at all? Is this just another broken promise?

See this speech in context